VERY productive Saturday . . . but then there was Duke

Well, the biggest accomplishment of the day was getting that big "tent" thing that we used over at Al's as a "run in" for the horses put up adjacent to the storage building back in the pasture.  Mark will be parking all the mowers and things that are taking up space in our garage back there.  The thing is pretty large - probably 20 X 35, I think - so it was a challenge to set up.  Couldn't have done it without Buddy's help, that's for sure.  

First they got all the parts out of the horse trailer and the van (Mark uses that old van as giant tool box) and laid everything out on the ground and they put it together back there in the pasture.  Here they've put all the roof arches together and are spreading out the cover parts.   

That's when Duke decided to "help."  (Ahem.)

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Duke is about to spread out all those fasteners in that tray just in front of him there.

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Mark rescues those fasteners and Duke "pretends" he's no longer interested.

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But in no time, he's back.

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Lisa is TRYING to keep him from playing with those panels.

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Here she's trying to lead him OFF of that panel by the mane.  (He'd make a fine entry in one of those western trail riding competitions where they have to walk across plastic tarps and things, wouldn't he?)

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Once we got Duke to go away for a while, Lizzie took advantage of the opportunity to check things out herself!

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But she's JUST looking - not trying to pick it up and drag it around like Duke.
(Look how muddy she is!  Yuk!)

Okay!  The frame is up.  They're taking a break before adding the panels -- an even more difficult process.

But before they put the roof on, Buddy went up and sawed off that big branch that would have hung down against the roof.

They've gotten the roof put on at this point -- and the horses seem to have lost interest.

Uh-oh -- spoke too soon.  Here comes Duke AGAIN.

Lisa had a talk with him about how he was NOT to lean up against those posts.  He appears to be listening, but that meant NOTHING that day!

Duke really was a serious pain most of the day. Lisa brought their baby goat, Dixie, with them again.  Look how cute!   

Then when it was time for her to have a bottle, she brought her out there to the back by the tent where we all were at the time.

Now you can't really tell from these pictures, but when Duke saw that baby goat, he stiffened up and started snorting like crazy -- something I've NEVER seen him do before!

Lisa is talking to him, trying to calm him down here.  But he's getting worse, so she hurried back to the tent where Buddy and Mark were "just in case."

Duke followed closely, though, and here Lisa has turned around getting him to sniff that goat's milk bottle in her pocket and not Dixie. But he couldn't be distracted. 

When he started to look like he might actually do something objectionable, Buddy came over and Duke stood back a little way.

But he still obviously wanted to get a hold of Dixie.

Finally, Buddy took Dixie and Duke backed off -- briefly.  (Maybe he was jealous that Lisa would be paying attention to someone other than him!)

But then when Buddy set Dixie down and Duke saw her jumping around on the ground, he was back in no time! 

At that point, I have no more pictures because Duke decided to go after her and I needed to go help back him off!   He was being SO aggressive that we all knew the best thing to do was get poor Dixie out of there NOW!

Lisa tried to keep Duke with her there at the tent long enough for Buddy to get Dixie out of the pasture.  But Duke wouldn't fall for that for long -- he raced after them right after they headed for the front gate, so we all had to run him away from them until Buddy could get out of the pasture with Dixie.  And even once they were out, Duke stood at that gate and stared after her, pushing on the gate, for a good while! 

That was so strange since Duke has never been the least bit aggressive to anything else at all. The garage cat walks in and out of his stall all the time and he pays absolutely NO attention to her. And he actually seems to LIKE the dogs, even if they're carrying on and barking at him like crazy.

Hmm - maybe Boo has been talking to Duke about goats. (Remember -- we got Boo because he "offed" a couple of his previous owner's goats.)

Well -- whatever the reason, WE won't ever be having goats, that's for sure!

Well, here's the view of that tent addition to the storage building from the kitchen window.

You can barely see it from the house, which is good.  The only reason you can, actually, is because I had cut off all those bottom branches on that oak tree.  By spring, the branches will have grown out and it won't be visible at all.  Nice.  And because it's right there in the midst of all those trees, it won't take up any space on the grassy part of that pasture.  We really can't afford to lose ANY grass -- we just don't have that much space.  So it's going to work out just fine.  Can't WAIT to see that empty garage!